Goodbye 2011.....

I am sitting here looking back over this year, where we were and where we are today.  It has been a long year with a lot of ups and downs.  Some of which have forever changed me as a person.

January was my first forever change as I committed to be the mom of a 9.5 year old little girl with a boat load of issues through adoption.  Little R has worked so hard this year on her healing.  She has grown stronger both physically and emotionally.  A year ago she was fearful of everything even going to take a shower or go into her bedroom if the light was off.  She would lash out in violence if something didn’t go her way or she would rage for hours if her PTSD set in.   Now I sit here writing this with her showering on her own in the other room and no fear of a dark bedroom.  She has shown me so much about resilience and taught me so much about the power of trust.  I have had to earn her trust and it has been a long road and will continue to be so.

Little R is still “little” and will require consistent 1 on 1 from us for many years to come. This has been very unexpected and taxing on me.   We are hopeful that her healing will continue and she will become more independent as time goes on.   I struggle at times with having a 10.5 year old who is still requiring toddler supervision but who is growing on the outside.  I find myself as mom, psychiatrist, and listener most days as Little R works through and grieves her past and tries to process the present and future.  I realize that it is all a process and she is making great strides and growth.

For me personally this has been a tough year.  I have struggled continually with my connection to Little R in trying to find that feeling that she is mine forever.  I love her very much but she pushes me away so often and doesn’t let me be her mom that I feel rejected and don’t feel like a mom but a babysitter to her.  I lost my job in April and really have had a hard time recovering from that.  I loved my job and had envisioned staying there forever.  I was thrust out when the company went under in such a quick fashion I never had a chance to process.  I did find another job and am so blessed by that, but it is so different from my previous job I am struggling to adjust. Then there was my miscarriage.   I never had a chance to truly grieve the loss of my baby last December because Little R was here for her first Christmas and the adoption was right around the corner.  I brushed it under the rug.  Not a good idea.  It has finally surfaced and I am struggling with the loss of something I never even had.  Something I have always wanted and something I may never have again.   So this New Year’s Eve I am working through a lot of junk.

Feelings of loss over my pregnancy, fear of the future with my job, and connection with Little R, and my idea of what parenting should be.  I do know though that my God who is more powerful than all of my fear and all of my loss and all of my grief and will be there to lean on. He knows all that I am going through and feeling and will hold me up when I am weak and can’t walk another step.  My emotions are raw these days and I struggle at times to know what the right thing to do or say is.

My prayer for this New Year is that I will have healing in my heart from my loss and fear and that I will have great connections and strides with my Little R.  One thing I do know is that no matter what this New Year brings my God will be walking each day right beside me.

Reflection.....

Today was the last Sunday before Christmas and our church held a baptism Sunday service. Typically this is done on Palm Sunday but there had been requests to do it again so they decided this would be the week.   Little R has seen two baptism Sunday’s before today, and she just wasn’t ready to be baptized.  When I had asked her about this baptism she said “I think I will wait until the spring” the topic was closed.

This morning we arrived at church like any other Sunday and my girl was dressed in a nice winter sweater dress. She loves to dress pretty.  As the baptisms began she leaned to me and said “I think I will be baptized in the spring”.  I said OK and then as the baptisms went on I noticed she was restless. She said to Mike " I think I want to be baptized" and then when I asked her why and if she understood that she would go home in her wet clothes she changed her mind.   I few minutes later the pastor gave an invitation for those who did not plan on being baptized that the water was there and what better time than now to do it and that it was OK to be wet and go home in your wet clothing. He explained about baptism and how it is an outward expression of an inward change.  Rebecca tugged Mike’s arm and said “I changed my mind I really want to be baptized now”.  I sat with her during the song and said “why” to which she replied “I want to show that I have changed and that I want to follow Jesus always”.  I said “you know you will be all wet” and she said “I need to do this, I don’t care” and she was out of the seat and heading toward the baptismal as quick as she could get there and never looked back.  My little girl was baptized this morning. I was a very proud mama. Later at home she told me it was like a miracle. When she came out of the water she felt new like a normal girl.  I broke down crying and hugging her.  It was a sweet moment for us.

I had spent some time over the past few weeks reflecting back on my daughters change in the past year and I am astounded at her growth.  Now, she has grown physically, in fact she has grown almost 7 inches and gained 20 pounds.  She came to us as a tiny scraggly little 8.5 year old and is now a beautiful growing girl.  Her physical changes are evident to all who see her but it is the changes on the inside that are the most reflective on my heart today.

A year ago I could not make it a day without some sort of tantrum some which turned into rages.  I was contacted almost daily by the school for behavior issues and she was not progressing in school at all.  She could not manage social situations and most Sunday’s we had a breakdown of some nature in the church about her behavior.  She refused to treat her dad with respect and often belittled him and found ways to say hurtful things that hit the core.  We were contemplating whether we could even adopt her because of the string of continued tantrums and abuse she was dishing out.  I spent two weeks nursing a black eye and massive bite mark to my arm at the hand of my little girl and numerous other bruises including many to my heart.

Like I said that was a year ago.  Here we are today my girl asked to be baptized and I was all too happy to agree that it was time.  I am sitting her tonight as she has offered to help clean up after dinner, and is doing her chores without complaint.   She is doing well in school and has not been in any trouble this school year.  The teachers say she is a delight to work with.  She has been able to transition from activity to activity and goes into large social situations without a meltdown afterwards.  She is learning boundaries and self-control and she is learning trust.  She is opening up and sharing some deep secrets with me.  My heart has been warmed most by the sweet relationship she has built with my husband.  She has actually  said just in recent days how much she misses him when he works late and often asks when he is coming home and if I say he is working late she says “oh bummer”.  What a change.  A year ago she told me she didn’t know how to be good because the devil was making her do the bad things in her head, and today she is talking about all the things she is learning in church and how much she wants to be closer to God and so much less about the devil being in control.  She is adopted and has permanency this year and a new name.

My little R is a compassionate child and cares so much for those in need and those hurting.  I can’t wait to see what kind of adult she is going to be.  I now see beautiful promise for this child and am so proud to call her my daughter.

Little R has a lot of healing still to go and we have a lot of work still to do and I am sure we will have days that feel like we have taken 10 steps backwards but I will look back at our first year and remember how far we have come.

I have received a beautiful early Christmas present today watching my girl get baptized and the best present I have received this year is the changes I have seen in her and the love that I have for her.  I look forward to next Christmas and seeing the growth in my little girl.

FEAR

Fears, we all have them. 

How many of you have ever been afraid, I mean really afraid.  Did your breathing get fast and shallow, did you freeze so no one would hear you move, did you ever run?   How many of you have ever had someone jump out at you and you get startled then your reaction is to get mad and swing at them?  

My girl goes through a state of fear multiple times a day.  Sometimes it is flash backs, images of her past, and reminders daily that she is different.  Her stuff is big and it is painful to watch her endure.  She carries a lot of big stuff around and when it becomes too much she blows.

I recently realized that her defiance and anger has nothing to do with wanting to dis-respect me as her parent but has everything to do with her fear. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of trusting, and fear of memories.  It is her reaction to fear that I see each day.

Her anger is directed at me but it is not about me.  It is a front for all the fear she is feeling inside.  Once I was able to see her anger and tantrums as fear, I was able to see her in such a different light.  Fear consumes her.  Her past was so unpredictable and scary that it consumes the very person that she is.  Her reaction to the fear is the anger that I so often see.

So, how do I help her to take away this fear?  I just need to be there for her.  I need to open myself up to her pain and emotionally allow myself to see her fear where she is at.  Most of all during these times when it feels like I can’t love her, it is often when she needs me to love her the most.   I give her a hug and tell her everything is going to be ok.  Acknowledge her fear and help her express it in a different way.  Through her screaming I tell her I love her and I am here for her. When she is done verbally abusing me and leaving a tornado in her wake I wrap my arms around her and tell her she is a good girl and that I love her.  She needs my love; she needs to know that she is loved. She needs to know that despite the behavior I will always love her.

Can you imagine being in fear all the time because your life has been so unpredictable that you can’t trust anyone that is around you?  I can’t imagine life being like that.  Each day I look at her I begin to love her more.  She is strong, she is working so hard to overcome and if it takes the rest of my life I will continue to love her through her fear to help her heal.

 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.1 John 4:18a

Today I wonder???

“Raising a child with difficult behaviors can be more than exhausting...it can actually be painful. It can hurt just getting out of bed in the morning. The day in and day out of being with a child who rejects you, defies you and disrespects you can put you in a place of even questioning your decision to become a mother. This level of stress leaves you tired, angry, frustrated, physically sick, resentful, sad, tearful, and/or hopeless.”   Heather Forbes: Beyond Consequences Love and Logic.

The life of a mom who has a RAD child is extremely trying. The quote above says it all for me.   Lately I have been feeling so defeated as a parent and exhausted from the constant challenges and some days I feel like just staying in bed and pulling the covers over my head and not getting up.

Unless you have raised or are raising a RAD child you will not understand this feeling that overwhelms a mom.  The overwhelming feeling of being disrespected, yelled at, spit on, kicked,  and having someone roll their eyes and do the exact opposite of what you ask out of spite makes you cringe.  Without words being told that nothing you are doing is good enough. 

The most difficult part for me is that all of this is done in private behind the 4 walls of our home and no one else gets to see this side of our Little R.  So sharing and expecting anyone to understand where I am coming from is impossible.  I don’t want to shed my little girl in a bad light, but I as a mom need support to survive this life that I am dealing with.

I pray each day that God will give me the strength to put on a layer of armor so that her words and disrespect will not penetrate and hurt me, I know that I should not take her behavior personally she is a hurt little girl surviving the only way she knows how, but it does hurt. It hurts a lot. 

I have had a lot of rejection in my life, and have spent many years dealing with it and healing from it.  I thought that I had gotten past the losses in my life, but when my little girl, who we want to love so much and give the world puts up a wall up and rejects me, it wells up in me such sadness and painful memories. 

Today I feel like a failure at this parenting thing, today I wonder if we are the right family for this little girl or if a more trained family would have been a better choice….  Today I just wonder...

.......Words will never hurt me!

Two weeks ago one of our pastors did a sermon on taming our tongue and how powerful words are.

I have been at the receiving end of many hurtful words.   Words have power, once spoken they do not easily heal; they stick around for a long time if not a lifetime.   Bruises and scrapes can heal and disappear and the pain is forgotten, but not words. It has taken me years to deal with some things that were said to me that I had to heal from and still to this day struggle from time to time with those popping up and I am in my mid-thirties so it has been a long road of healing.

Out of all of the wounds Little R endured words for her were the worst beating she took. She was told she was not wanted, a bad kid, stupid, not as good as her other siblings and the hurtful words go on and on. She recalls vividly things that were said to her but has all but forgotten the physical hurts she has endured.

Words do hurt.   I am  working hard to help Little R overcome these lie’s that she has heard and believes.  I have to be very careful about the words that I say to her as well. I work daily on encouraging and uplifting her and when admonishing her I remind her that we all make mistakes and she is still a great kid and dearly loved.

I have made many mistakes and have had to apologize for words I have said. One thing I realize though is that as I get closer to God and my walk is stronger I notice that when I do say something I should not have I often am immediately convicted and feel the need to think over what I said and deal with it. I love the power of the Holy Spirit that convicts me so I can right my wrong.   I also realize the power of words as I watch my Little R heal from so much pain and I am so much more aware of what I say to others and to children as a result.

Words cannot be taken back. Once they have left your mouth they are spoken and heard and the damage is done, even if you apologize. Children are very impressionable and once something is said they often internalize that and believe it to be so. I have a perfect example in my Little R.  A girl who struggles with self image, self esteem and believes she isn't worth anything.   We have to be so careful to choose our words wisely and remember to up life our children and acknowledge there good qualities and remind them daily they are beautifully and wonderfully made in God’s image.  Remind them that they can be anything they want.  Tell them you love them and think they are the best.  Give compliments often and minimize your criticism. Hug them and hold them and tell them you are so proud of them and the fact they are yours.   

 I remind Little R that the words that come out of her mouth have power the power to up lift and the power to hurt.  It is a difficult job to teach a little one about holding there tongue and speaking with kindness, and not gossiping, but what a beautiful friend and confidant she will become if she can master this skill.

Now if only I can master this  first so I can be a good example to her.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.  Eph 4:29

I am being watched

I know creepy huh? The thought of someone stocking you or watching you all the time and knowing things about you makes my skin crawl.

I knew as a parent I would be responsible for teaching and training my children and I also knew that as a parent of a foster child I would be re-teaching a lot of skills and habits that were incorrectly learned, but what I didn’t realize is how much you are watched on a daily basis in everything that you do.

Just recently Mike asked me if I had eaten breakfast and he always nags me when I don’t so I gave him that sly smile and said “yes I did” he turned to Little R and said “did mom really eat?” and she looked at her dad and said “ she must have she’s a Christian and wouldn’t lie”. OUCH!!! I quickly rectified the situation but it got me to thinking.

How often does she catch on to the things I do and say? The way I look at someone in the grocery store or respond to someone as I am driving and aggravated. How often does she catch little things when I am not being so “Christian like” and then what does she think when I expect the opposite of her.

How many of us quickly forget that our kids are watching when we get super angry at the car that pulled in front of us or the lady at the supermarket that looked a little funny and we chuckle. How about watching crappy TV but telling your kids it is not appropriate for them. (some exceptions of course apply). What about cursing and then telling your kids those are bad words and not to say them. I have been feeling convicted.

Little R is very attuned to what is going on in her environment due to her past trauma and needing to be "in the know" to feel safe. I wonder how many times she hears me grumble and complain or be crabby with Mike and I don’t think she is even listening.

I am suppose to be an example of Jesus to her. I am the hands and feet of Jesus to this little girl and I have a job and a task to teach her and train her and help her to navigate this world with a different type of attitude and response than her peers may.

I have a responsibility to this little girl to guide her and teach her and mold her in the way that God would want her to live her life and I can’t do that if I myself am not living the life that God would have me live. Someday if Little R learns nothing from me and never fully connects to me, the one thing I would be most please with is to hear her say that I was a woman of God and she could see that in me and learned something from me through this.

I am working with her to teach her skills and knowledge and change habits, but in turn she is unknowingly helping me to be accountable and in some cases get back on track with the way that I should be acting and living my life. It is not to say that I am running around like a crazy heathen but there are times and hours where I am less than pleased with the way I handled something and know my God is not pleased either and she provides a reminder for me of how I need to live my life.

I hope to each day remember that I am training our next generation and leading by example of how a Godly woman should live her life.

Proverbs 22:6  Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

It is simple.... I was called to do this

Can you imagine if God turned his back on us when we failed him?  Can you imagine what it would be like if we didn’t have a savior?   I can't imagine what it would be like to know that there was no Grace or mercy or unfailing Love?   I thank God everyday for his unfailing love for me.  His Grace when I fail him and his mercy when I deserve so much more reprimand than I receive.  I don’t even want to imagine what it would be like to not have a savior, a Redeemer, a Friend because I assure you I would not be here today if it had not been by the grace of God.

I have been told on many occasions in the last year that my husband and I are saintly, amazing, we have done the impossible.  We have been asked,  "how did you do it?"  “Why did you do it?”
  “Are you going to do it again?”  We have had many more questions asked of us surrounding the adoption of our girl as well.

Recently I was asked by a therapist “How do you love her even with all the hurt and upheaval she has caused you”.  I looked at the therapist and said “It is simple; I was called to do this”

I don’t believe that I would have chosen this path in my life had my body functioned the way that it should have and I had biological babies.  I certainly tried to avoid even in the adoption process a child with Little R’s conditions, but God had other plans for my life.

I was called to parent this child. God knew that I was capable of more that I could imagine.  He was calling me to something bigger than myself.    I was called to love a traumatized child unconditionally and give her my unfailing love.  I was called to provide grace and mercy to her during times when others turned her away and I was called to be her mother, teacher and friend. 

I do not see myself as amazing or saintly.  I am far from that, and I fail daily, but I do see myself as a child of God called to a task of helping this little girl heal from a traumatic past and grow to be a loving woman and child of God herself.

 How can I not love her, God made her.   He knew her before she was even born. He knew everything about her and still does.  He loves her even more than I do….her current condition is the result of human mistakes and she is paying the price.  I am to love her with the same intensity that God loves her and give her the Grace she needs to fail and try again.

I have the best job in the world.  I get to show my little R what a mom should be and I get to show her what true love is and I get to show  her that the world can look a lot different than she had envisioned and experienced.   So it is simple... I was called to do this. This is my calling in life.  Not to travel to remote parts of the world, or preach, or be someone amazing on TV, it isn’t even to sing which is my passion. It is to simply be a mom to Little R and help her heal and grow. 

Will we adopt again… well… my heart says yes but we will have to wait and see what God says as the next year or so goes by.